Voting behavior of group most
sought by politicians shows independence and volatility;

disagreeing with bishops on key issues, refusing to be tied to
either major party.

Washington, DC -- A new report released today
by Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC) analyzes the voting
patterns of Catholics in America and reveals that they defy the
stereotype of a monolithic voting bloc. Catholics are
one-quarter of the electorate, but despite a convergence of
concern for social justice and the value of the family, they
show an increasing independence and volatility in voting. A
large and crucial portion of Catholic voters refuse to be firmly
tied to either major party, even as cultivating their vote has
become a top priority of the Republican and Democratic Parties.

The report, entitled Beyond the Spin, was
produced by CFFC, a social justice organization, to help
candidates, policymakers and media better understand the place
of the 63.8 million Catholic laypeople and their leadership in
the 2002 elections. By analyzing national surveys and polling,
political reporting, and social research on Catholic voters,
Beyond the Spin illuminates Catholics’ swing vote relationship
to the Republican and Democratic parties and how their attitudes
towards reproductive health issues are often misrepresented by
the Catholic hierarchy, confusing candidates about what is spin
and what is reality.

The report stresses that issues important to
Catholics are not unlike those significant to mainstream voters.
A recent survey of Catholic voters, for example, showed they are
most concerned about bread-and-butter issues of personal
economic security. They are influenced more by what the
candidates will do about preserving Social Security and
Medicare, improving health care and education, and fighting
crime, than by church-defined issues of morality.

" Like other Americans, Catholics vote
their wallets. " Stated Frances Kissling, president of
Catholics for a Free Choice. "Candidates need to be more
aware of the issues of real concern to Catholic voters, and to
understand their true opinion on moral issues that the church
falsely promotes as important to Catholic voters."

Beyond the Spin explores how both national
parties are presently making the strongest bid in over a decade
for what they perceive of as the "Catholic vote."
Their attention is due to the large concentration of Catholics
in key battleground states and because of their track record of
going with the winner in every presidential election since 1972.
The only exception to that trend was in 2000, when more
Catholics voted for Al Gore than George W. Bush.

Cultivating the Catholic vote has become the
cornerstone of President Bush’s political strategy for both
this year’s Senate and House races and for his own re-election
effort in 2004. Since the 2000 election, the GOP has tried to
attract more churchgoing Catholic voters by stressing moral and
religious themes and "compassionate conservatism." But
the bid for the "Catholic vote" is based on a general
lack of understanding about how Catholics do and do not vote.
Many candidates and policymakers are unaware of exactly what the
"Catholic vote" means.

On a range of issues, the report shows that
Catholic voters are more likely to stand with other Americans
than with the US Catholic bishops and the Vatican. Majorities of
Catholic voters, for example, support the death penalty (80%),
legal abortion (66%) and the practice of allowing doctors to
assist in the suicide of terminally ill patients (56%). These
issues have made their way into political races. For example:

In Michigan, anti-abortion protestors flocked
to the parish of Attorney General Jennifer Granholm, the
Democratic nominee for governor who professes a "100
percent prochoice" stance. When Granholm’s parish priest
urged fellow Catholics to try to understand her position, he was
scolded by his bishop. Protesters even picketed the home of
Cardinal Adam Maida, the Detroit archbishop, to try and get him
to publicly condemn the candidate for her position.

In Texas, Bishop Edmond Carmody of Corpus
Christi banned gubernatorial candidate Tony Sanchez and
lieutenant governor candidate John Sharp, both Roman Catholics,
from speaking in Catholic facilities in their hometowns because
they favor abortion rights.

In New Jersey, the Most Reverend John Smith,
Bishop of Trenton forbids publicly honoring any Catholic
pro-choice politicians or inviting them to speak at public
events and educational programs; similar prohibitions are in
force in dioceses in Illinois, Kentucky, New York, and around
the country.

Jennifer Bernstein, director of public policy
at CFFC states, "Catholics don’t go to church to hear
political statements. A majority of Catholics are not influenced
by the political recommendations of their priests, their bishops
or even the Pope."

A copy of the full report, Beyond the Spin,
can be obtained by calling 202-986-6093 or by going to CatholicVote(4.5Meg
PDF). Catholics for a Free Choice shapes and advances sexual and
reproductive ethics that are based on justice, reflect a
commitment to women’s well-being, and respect and affirms the
moral capacity of women and men to make sound decisions about
their lives. Through discourse, education and advocacy, CFFC
works in the United States and internationally to infuse these
values into public policy, community life, feminist analysis,
and Catholic social thinking and teaching.

Not Gone
With the Wind Voices of Slavery—Henry Louis
Gates, Jr.—9 February 2003—Unchained Memories,
an HBO documentary that makes its debut tomorrow
night, provides a powerful answer to that question.
It gives us, through the faces and voices of
African-American actors, an introduction to a vast
undertaking that took place in the 1930's: the
collection and preservation of the testimonies of
thousands of aged former slaves in an archive known
as the Slave Narrative Collection of the Federal
Writers' Project. This archive unlocked the brutal
secrets of slavery by using the voices of average
slaves as the key, exposing the everyday life of the
slave community. Rosa Starke, a slave from South
Carolina, for example, told of how class divisions
among the slaves were quite pronounced:

''Dere was just
two classes to de white folks, buckra slave owners
and poor white folks dat didn't own no slaves. Dere
was more classes 'mongst de slaves. De fust class
was de house servants. Dese was de butler, de maids,
de nurses, chambermaids, and de cooks. De nex' class
was de carriage drivers and de gardeners, de
carpenters, de barber and de stable men. Then come
de nex' class, de wheelwright, wagoners, blacksmiths
and slave foremen. De nex' class I members was de
cow men and de niggers dat have care of de dogs. All
dese have good houses and never have to work hard or
git a beatin'. Then come de cradlers of de wheat, de
threshers and de millers of de corn and de wheat,
and de feeders of de cotton gin. De lowest class was
de common field niggers.''

If your mind lies
in the Devil's workshop
Evil-doin's your thrill
And trouble and mischief is all you live
for
You know damn well
That you'll go to hell (yeah)
You'll go to hell

Now you're living high and mighty
Rich off the fat of the land
Just don't dispose of your natural soul
'cos if you do you know damn well
That you'll go to hell (yes, you will)
You'll go to hell

Hell
Where your natural soul burns
Hell
Where you pay for your sins
Hell
Keep your children from doing wrong (if
you can)
'cos you know damn well
That they'll go to hell
They'll go to hell

Hell
Man, woman were created
Hell
To live for eternity
Hell
With an apple they ate from the tree of
hate
So you know damn well
Oh... they went to hell (yes, they did)
They went to hell

Some say that hell is below us
But I say it's right by my side
'cos you see evil in the morning
Evil in the evening, all the time
You know damn well
That we all must be in hell
We got to be in hell
We all must be in hell
We must be in hell.

On one level, Salvage the Bones is a simple story about a poor black family that’s about to be trashed by one of the most deadly hurricanes in U.S. history. What makes the novel so powerful, though, is the way Ward winds private passions with that menace gathering force out in the Gulf of Mexico. Without a hint of pretension, in the simple lives of these poor people living among chickens and abandoned cars, she evokes the tenacious love and desperation of classical tragedy. The force that pushes back against Katrina’s inexorable winds is the voice of Ward’s narrator, a 14-year-old girl named Esch, the only daughter among four siblings. Precocious, passionate and sensitive, she speaks almost entirely in phrases soaked in her family’s raw land. Everything here is gritty, loamy and alive, as though the very soil were animated. Her brother’s “blood smells like wet hot earth after summer rain. . . . His scalp looks like fresh turned dirt.” Her father’s hands “are like gravel,” while her own hand “slides through his grip like a wet fish,” and a handsome boy’s “muscles jabbered like chickens.” Admittedly, Ward can push so hard on this simile-obsessed style that her paragraphs risk sounding like a compost heap, but this isn’t usually just metaphor for metaphor’s sake. She conveys something fundamental about Esch’s fluid state of mind: her figurative sense of the world in which all things correspond and connect. She and her brothers live in a ramshackle house steeped in grief since their mother died giving birth to her last child. . . . What remains, what’s salvaged, is something indomitable in these tough siblings, the strength of their love, the permanence of their devotion.—WashingtonPost

Wilderson, a professor,
writer and filmmaker from
the Midwest,
presents a gripping account
of his role in the downfall
of South African apartheid
as one of only two black
Americans in the African
National Congress (ANC).
After marrying a South
African law student, Wilderson reluctantly
returns with her to South
Africa in the early 1990s,
where he teaches
Johannesburg and Soweto
students, and soon joins the
military wing of the ANC.
Wilderson's stinging
portrait of Nelson Mandela
as a petulant elder eager to
accommodate his white
countrymen will jolt readers
who've accepted the
reverential treatment
usually accorded him. After
the assassination of
Mandela's rival, South
African Communist Party
leader Chris Hani, Mandela's
regime deems Wilderson's
public questions a threat to
national security; soon,
having lost his stomach for
the cause, he returns to
America.
Wilderson has a
distinct, powerful voice and
a strong story that shuffles
between the indignities of
Johannesburg life and his
early years in Minneapolis,
the precocious child of
academics who barely
tolerate his emerging
political consciousness.
Wilderson's observations
about love within and across
the color line and cultural
divides are as provocative
as his politics; despite
some distracting
digressions, this is a
riveting memoir of
apartheid's last days.—Publishers
Weekly